Posts tagged ‘silly’

(Click on “Flash Mob” above, if you don’t know what one is. I promise not to tease.)

Ever since her teenage granddaughter, Jewel, had shown her a video of a flash mob on the internet on TubeYou—or whatever it was called, it had been on the list.

It was just what the senior center needed to spice things up from the usual Bingo and quilting routine, so she had dragged Jewel around—constantly urging her to quit giggling and attracting attention of the others—to show the video to a few of her friends.

All five agreed: walkers, wheelchairs, Ben-Gay, support hose, sensible shoes and all.

So there they sat, eating their ham and scalloped potatoes for lunch separately, each pretending nothing special was going on. Jewel sat with her. She’d smuggled her portable stereo and her Eye-Pod—whatever it was called—in her backpack for them.

She watched the clock like a hawk. Five more minutes, then three, then one. Then the clock finally showed 1:07. She grinned at Jewel and stood up, with the other five, praying they wouldn’t give anyone a heart attack. They pumped their fists in the air and yelled into the quiet of the lunchroom.

“BUCKET LIST FLASH MOB!”

Then Jewel started her Eye-Pod, and the music came through the stereo, pumping a strong beat.

She and her friends stomped, danced, rolled wheelchairs back and forth, twisted, and turned. Just as they’d practiced. She let the music take over. Certainly she was far too old for cool dance moves, but she could enjoy the music. It was her bucket list, after all.

The other seniors first gaped, then one at a time, they began laughing and clapping along.

But it was when she saw Jewel in corner with her Eye-Pod laughing so hard she was crying, that’s when she really started to have fun.

This is a picture I did not take of a black hearse with tinted windows traveling at speed down a country road toward an oncoming storm as the morning sky darkened in advance of a tornado watch, and as the hearse sped through incoming rain toward the storm and the edge of Alabama, it was chased by an intrepid State trooper, lights blazing through the now downpour, police siren wailing as the wind of their chase passing twirled piles of wet leaves at the roadside into small spirals, eddies of their own.

MY FLASH FICTION STORY:

Grandma’s Bucket List: The Hearse

Flash Fiction by Voni Harris

3-6-12

She hadn’t reckoned on the rain. Nor the tornado warning. But she was almost there.

The fact that her high-speed vehicle of choice was a hearse with tinted windows made it all the more exhilarating. She’d never driven one before, but when Eddie suggested it, she knew she had to say yes.

The whole discussion had happened so fast.

She was driving in light rain, but the clouds ahead were black. She didn’t want to spin out on the wet leaves girding the road, but she couldn’t slow down if she wanted to wanted to reach her goal. And she needed to reach her goal. The Alabama state line was the agreement—even if that’s the direction the tornadoes were coming from.

95 miles an hour…check.

State troopers in pursuit…check.

So far, so good. There it was. The welcome sign to Alabama. She gave the gas an extra push as she crossed over.

Alabama state line…check!

She eased up on the accelerator, let the hearse slow down easily, then gently crossed the median and drove herself sedately back across the state line to where the troopers were waiting indignantly.

She tried not to smile at their angry faces as she pulled to the side of the highway.

She tried not to grin when they gaped. She must have been quite a sight with her gray hair, her old-lady sensible shoes, and her apron, still floury from baking bread with her granddaughter, Jewel.

“Hello officers.”

“Lady, what do you think…” The deputy teetered on the brink of indecisiveness, between the need to issue a lecture and the need to respect his elders. She could see it in his face.

The second officer closed his cell phone and interrupted. “Sir? Dispatch just called. Eddie did give her the, uh, use of his hearse. It’s not stolen.”

She smiled primly. “I understand you will be giving me a speeding ticket, and perhaps a ride back to town?”

Just then, on the other side of the highway, her nephew Eddie and his wife pulled to the side of the road in his VW bug. Jewel was in their back seat, rolling with laughter.

Eddie got out of the bug and walked over to the her, and she tossed him the keys to his hearse. “Eddie Jenkins Funeral Home” it said on the side.

His wife scooted over to the VW’s driver’s side, and Jewel scrambled to the passenger seat. They honked and waved at her.

The looks on the officers’ faces begged an explanation.

“I’ve always wanted to be in a high-speed chase,” she explained as she headed toward the police car.

Then she raised her hands, lifted her face into the rain, pumped her fists and yelled. “BUCKET LIST!”

I say on my homepage that I have a crazy wheaten terrier named Harley.

Here’s the outrageous proof.

If we call Goldie, our 9-year-old Golden Retriever, and he doesn’t come at once, Harley will either go get him for us, or she’ll do her nervous peeing. Disobedience apparently bothers her. Except for her own, that is.

She also does what she can to prevent Goldie from chewing on his foot, divebombing him with a slight growl, as if to say, “I’m going to tell Mom!”

One day recently, Leah was sitting on the couch, and she coughed. Harley jumped up on the couch, put one paw on Leah’s shoulder and looked deep into her eyes with concern.

This morning, our new pup, a Golden Retriever named Nikki, decided to splash the water in the dog bowl all over the kitchen. By all over, I mean ALL OVER. Harley came running upstairs to me at the computer, barking. In other words, tattling.

The other day, Nikki was–as pups are wont to do–chewing on a sock. Leah told her to “drop it,” and Nikki just sat there and looked at her. Harley got up, went and took the sock away from the pup, and brought it to Leah.

Harley is a goofy mutt! Well, she’s purebred, but mutt just seems to fit, somehow.

I have her picture up on the homepage to this blog, if you want to see her at her goofiest.

Don’t laugh at me…my favorite games were boarding school, orphanage, or slave. I would make my sister and brother actually do school work. Sometimes, they would agree to play boarding school, then after I’d spent an hour setting up, they would refuse to play. Gee, I wonder why? Orphanage? I apparently read too much children’s literature about spunky orphans (see my blog on Friday.)

I remember especially playing these games in my grandparent’s barn. It was no longer used, but it had all these lovely empty stalls. We could each have one for a bedroom, and one for a schoolroom, and there was even an office my grandfather used to use. Or sometimes, we would imagine it was a mansion.

“Writer at work” is it, all right. I need to write, but I don’t really feel like it, so I’ve been playing around with my breadmaking entries. (Writing, true, but escapism in reality.)

So here I am in the theory that if I force myself get started, I’ll get going and create something. Kind of like starting a run just because you have to, but ending up on a runner’s high after you get going. Is there such thing as a writer’s high?

So…

DD and I walked to the store/post-office today, and I wore my ice cleats.

Quickly came the clicking of the cleats.
The clicking of the cleats quickened.
The clicking cleats came quickly.
The clicking cleats quickened behind him.
Came now the clicking of the cleats.
As the clicking of the cleats quickened, so did the beating of his heart.